To rehome puppy?

[MarsBars123]

Our 6 month old puppy bit our friends 6 year old daughter today.

We were having a meal and gave him his food afterwards. She walked behind him while he was eating and he spun around and bit her, he didn't draw blood but her hand was red.

I am in total shock, he has never done anything like this before, should we rehome him straight away? I'm really confused.

Same here never pulled a tail or inflicted pain on an animal to 'train'

It's people who need training not dogs. Yes the little darlings can do everything to a dog. Yet if the dog reacts rehome the fucker or put it to sleep.

If the OP was going about things the right way, no child would have been bitten would they?! Hopefully this will be taken as a warning to something potentially more serious and something sensible will be done to prevent this happening again. As I said earlier in the thread, an APBC behaviourist would be a good start to get you on the right track.

I have a rescue dog here who at one point was at very high risk of biting people. Potentially, he could still bite someone given the wrong person/situation as he was treated so badly before I got him and the only thing he knew from humans was a kicking. He's never bitten anyone and I have DC in the house, including one with Downs Syndrome who just doesn't understand how to behave around animals. I can absolutely say he never will bite my DC or anyone else either. I didn't get to that point by hitting him either....

Flatbread - excuse me? They aren't nervous around people AT ALL. I just don't allow people to go in whilst they are eating because they should be able to eat in peace. There's no need for people to be wondering around whilst they're eating.

Don't you dare call mine 'badly adjusted' when yours are the way they are through abuse!

McHP2012 - should we take it you don't have many six year old girls come to visit?

Really, the dog needs to be trained. In a nice gentle way, but yes, dogs need to be trained to deal with six year olds if they are going to be good family pets. If the dog is going to work for Securicor, then, OK, not so much.

Lol my son is 6 and I hate bring SN in this thread but is asd.

The dogs are up my parents house ( but also come to my house)where we are all rota to take care of our pets, I do Monday and Friday. My mum has 7 children 13 grandchildren and has had 6-7 birthday party's a year for primary aged children, also Halloween, birthdays and my mum hoist her own Xmas for the grandchildren.

My dog have had more experience with children as you can

Oldest grandchild is 14 youngest is 18 months

Top, if your dog came to France on a leash, I am pretty sure my three would run up to yours off-leash.

No one puts their dog on leash in rural France, at least in my area. Dogs go to children and children come up to dogs all the time. It is normal.

Dogs here have as much of a free life as they possibly can. Far more than in UK. No owners hovering over their dogs and wringing their hands because a strange dog or child has walked over and started playing with the dog.

And IMO, it is the right way to bring up a dog. Let them be free and teach them to be easy-going around others, especially children.

Flatbread, when you are in your other home, in the UK, as you don't live in rural France all the time, do you? Do you put your dogs on a lead in public places then or allow them to approach dogs that are on their leads?

Odd really, you go on about your well trained, well adjusted dogs, but mine have never given me a reason to hit them...

Camus - of course, I'm a dog owner. Why else would I reply to this thread?

Pack order/pecking order is quite a well understood part of canine psychology. I haven't just invented it...

You should definitely be able to get into his basket and you should definitely not allow him to get territorial over his toys. I got that from the leaflet from the rehoming charity!

Well, good luck getting into a chihuahua's basket, Sundae.

My point was that not allowing the dog to have some peaceful space to eat, sleep or play will foster the behaviour that you are trying to prevent. Check your leaflet - it should say that dogs need to have some quiet space of their own where they can feel safe and unthreatened. This is where I am disagreeing with your comment that they should under no circumstance have 'space' to eat. And expecting them to fit in with every human is totally unrealistic - if someone comes to visit with four children, the dog is supposed to be pushed and pulled about by these and just take it? Hmm .

Er, yes.

rehome the dog.

Actually the pack/pecking order thing is just one theory on canine psychology, and one a lot of people don't agree with.

Hmm...

Pack theory is actually absolutely outdated and debunked now.

Some links here:

www.apbc.org.uk/articles/why-wont-dominance-die

www.kathysdao.com/articles/Forget_About_Being_Alpha_in_Your_Pack.html

OP, you might find the Jean Donaldson book 'Mine!' which is about resource guarding helpful in understanding and dealing with your dog.

and here:

www.dogwelfarecampaign.org/why-not-dominance.php

You can see that supporting organisations include the RSPCA, Dogs Trust, APDT and APBC, amongst others.

Midori, your dogs had dog aggression, from an older thread. Mine don't.

I have tapped my dogs on their bum when they have ignored other warnings or if they are hyper and I need to snap them back. If they are food aggressive (only happened once when they got their first bone), i have held them and taken the bone and given it back when they stopped growling. Nipped it in the bud and never had any issues around food or another resource guarding. My three dogs happily wait and play near their food bowls till their freshly cooked meat cools, without getting stressed about eating. They each gnaw on their bones without fights (although puppy prudently eats his very close to me). Food is just not an issue. Nor is meeting people, being cuddled by children or hanging out with new dogs. tbh, they are lovely, laid-back dogs, happy where ever they are.

My dogs would consider cages (or crates as they are euphemistically called), halter collars that give them pain when they pull, being left alone/locked up in a kitchen when guests are around as terrible punishments. Luckily they have never been subject to these things.

Regarding your question about the uk, of course I put my dogs on the lead if required, but also let them run off leash whenever possible. I have seen some neurotic middle age women and their nervous dogs on the leash, even in dog parks, transmitting their anxiety to the poor dog who looks miserable and off-balance. My dogs tend to avoid them (and so do I)

And btw, my dogs need very little, if any correction now. They are just really well-behaved dogs. Even the adorable seven-month old can be trusted to be behave well off-leash in a market, cafe or restaurant, with minimal supervision.

The ones who go on about private space for the dog, letting the dog control food and toys and other resources, ime, have stressed dogs. No wonder these dogs can't be trusted to roam free without cages and leashes and hyper-ventilating human mums protecting them from evil 6 yr olds

I'm sorry Flatbread, you are wrong. My 'dogs' plural do not have dog aggression. One of my dogs is dog aggressive, he is a rescue dog and has all sorts of issues due to his dreadful start in life. However, there have been huge improvements in him in the time we have had him. He was also aggressive towards humans when we got him, he no longer is, but I doubt he will ever be totally comfortable around people he doesn't know. He is the very sad product of what hitting a dog as a punishment and not socialising them can do, as well as puppy farming. He can also be food aggressive with the other dogs, although not with me, again, as a result of his very poor start in life where he literally had to fight other dogs for his food in order to survive. Taking on a rescue dog with a lot of very serious issues is very different to bringing up a dog from a puppy or taking in an older but fairly well adjusted dog. If anyone were to ever hit him again, now he is rather large and rather strong, I doubt he would react well to it, and why should he, quite frankly?

However, none of my dogs have ever done anything to warrant a 'tap on the bum' (a smack, that's what it is, lets not beat about the bush!) and are well adjusted, well behaved dogs, even the rescue one is in most ways. He's certainly well trained!

However, anecdotal evidence of our own dogs aside, the OP clearly has a problem as her dog has felt the need to resort to a bite, one that could have been prevented, so something has gone wrong somewhere.

I have to say, having close relatives who live in rural France and having seen in your own words how dogs are treated there, their animal welfare standards are not something I aspire to.

And as you can see, my dogs are horribly stressed and poorly socialised....

i40.photobucket.com/albums/e201/midori1999/Dogs008.jpg

Midori, I am pretty sure I have seen threads where you have had problems with two of your bitches fighting and another/or same dog that is aggressive to other dogs and humans.

My girl dog is a rescue too. Brushing aside all the excuses, end result is you have a dog/dogs that are stressed around humans and dogs. I have happy well-adjusted dogs who socialise with children, strangers and other dogs without a second thought. (You can see my profile pictures too, and see our happy dog family.)

Like I said, the proof is in the pudding.

But getting back to the OP, her puppy had the opportunity to bite, because she actually is allowing her dog to get socialised, unlike some who lock theirs in cages or always have them on leash. Now OP knows to continue with her training in making the dog easy-going around food.

All those saying that their dog never has issues of resource guarding because they give it all the resources it wants, is analogous to parents boasting their child never throws a tantrum because the parents head it off by giving the child whatever it wants. Yup, give the dog whatever it wants, hide the stressed creature from the rest of the world, and there you go, complaining on mn about evil six yr olds and other nasty dogs who throw poor Fido off balance

I do agree with you though, that there are many dogs in rural France who are treated very badly. Especially hunting dogs.